


Living is Harder

by Sohotthateveryonedied



Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood, Blood and Injury, Dissociation, Gen, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Hurt Tim Drake, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mugging, Murder, Panic Attacks, Prompt: "Take me instead", Tim Drake is Robin, Whumptober 2020, it's sort of vague what his attacker was gonna do but yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26925037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sohotthateveryonedied/pseuds/Sohotthateveryonedied
Summary: Tim drops the knife like it’s white-hot. Oh, god. Oh,god.Tim did this. He was...he didn’t mean it. He didn’t. He would never. But the man was on top of him and Tim couldn’t breathe, and...he didn’tmean it.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948297
Comments: 36
Kudos: 770





	Living is Harder

**Author's Note:**

> Whump Day 9: "Take me instead" (THIS IS ONLY 19 MINUTES LATE OKAY IT STILL COUNTS)
> 
> This is...a loose interpretation of the prompt. Very loose. It’s more like “let me take the fall” than “take me instead,” but I wanted to write this concept really badly and had to fit it in somewhere during whumptober so here we are.

Tim is walking home from Steph’s house, his light-up Sketchers the only things illuminating his path through the Gotham night. He stayed out later than he planned, utterly captivated in the _Among Us_ tournament he and Steph were playing against their Titan friends all the way in San Francisco.   
  
(And Tim would have gotten away with the murders too, if it weren’t for that meddling Bart Allen who stared Tim down every time he killed a player, watching it happen but never reporting until Tim finally cracked from the shame and called an emergency meeting on himself.)  
  
Tim rode in Steph’s car on the way to her house, but forgot that it would mean he’d be without a ride home. Steph offered to drive him back to the manor, that she doesn’t mind losing a measly hour of sleep, but Tim insisted he didn’t mind walking. Besides, it’s not like it was a lie. Sure, it’s Gotham, which means Tim can see drug deals going down on street corners and the occasional drunkard puking into a trash can, but Tim feels at peace here.  
  
It brings him back to his early days of climbing fire escapes, tailing Batman and Robin under the cloak of night in the hopes to get just one more photo for his collection. It was a simpler time with fewer psychotic clowns—back then it was just the one, and all he did was tell shitty jokes and occasionally tie Robin up over a swimming pool filled with Jokerized sharks.   
  
Nowadays it’s all grotesque murders and creepy masks made of human skin. Where’s the showmanship? Where’s the _pizzazz?_ Disgusting. Deplorable. Lazy beyond all reason. Tim is insulted by the lack of artistic ability in these new Jokers, and you may quote him on that.  
  
Regardless, Tim takes comfort in knowing that if something _did_ go wrong, Cass is patrolling somewhere a good five blocks ahead. Maybe he can track her down and pick them up some corn dogs. He’s currently in the Red Hood’s territory, but whether Jason is around at the moment is a gamble at best. His schedule is harder to tamp down than a solid answer on Ted Cruz: Zodiac Killer. Jason might not even _be_ in Gotham right now; he could be in space for all anyone knows. Sometimes Tim feels like Jason is more of a feral cat than a brother, which isn’t too far off, really.  
  
Tim happens upon an empty beer can on the sidewalk in front of a boarded-up store that he’s fairly certain used to be an adult film shop. Good ol’ Gotham City. He stoops down to pick up the crinkled can like the good samaritan he is and drops it into a trash can at the mouth of a nearby alley. He wipes his hands on his jeans, designer style be damned.  
  
That’s when Tim is grabbed from behind, a hand reaching up to cover his mouth and muffle his shout. He’s pulled into the alley and pushed up against a wall, the bricks digging into his back and knocking the breath from his lungs. _Shit, shit, shit._ How could he have been taken by surprise so easily?  
  
It’s hard to make out his attacker in the shadowed alley, the only discernible features being dark eyes and bared yellow teeth—never a good sign. Tim’s hands are pinned together above him in a strong grip, practically wrenching his shoulders from the sockets. He tries to scream, but the man’s disgusting hand presses harder against his mouth. Tim freezes when he feels the poke of a knife at his throat, digging into the skin just below his Adam’s apple.   
  
“Make a sound and I’ll gut you,” his attacker says, his voice a low rumble. The stench of cigarettes and alcohol assaults Tim’s sinuses and makes his stomach roll. He’s going to have to be careful about this. Robin could get out of this hold in five different ways with varying degrees of injury to the opponent, but a civilian couldn’t. Even if the only witness is a low-life scumbag, he shouldn’t run the risk. Better to wait until he’s at the point of no return to bust out the Robin moves.  
  
Instead, Tim goes for the oldest trick in the book and knees the man in the crotch, _hard._ It has the desired effect and the grip on Tim’s wrists slackens, the man dropping him with a grunt. Tim ducks out of range and makes a run for it. If he can just get to the street, he should be home free. Even in Gotham City, there are always witnesses to help out a poor, defenseless teenager under attack.  
  
Tim almost makes it to the sidewalk when he’s grabbed by the hair, crying out as he’s thrown violently to the ground. Then there’s weight on top of him, pinning his shoulders to the dirty ground under his back. Tim fights, kicking out and delivering purposeful hits under the guise of a panicked struggle.   
  
“You little _shit,”_ the man spits. He’s still got a hold on Tim’s hair, which he uses to slam Tim’s head against the pavement so hard that Tim goes blind for a good ten seconds, his head spinning. The back of his scalp feels wet, and he hates to think about what bacteria must be lurking on the ground beneath him.   
  
The knife clatters somewhere to Tim’s side and he’s almost relieved until a hand wraps around his throat, cutting off his next breath. Instinct plunges him into panic, choking on the lack of air and scrambling to get a hold on his attacker. Scratching, kicking, desperately trying to loosen the grip crushing his windpipe.  
  
“You didn’t have to make this so difficult,” the man tells him. His body presses down on Tim’s smaller form, keeps him trapped against the unforgiving asphalt, and this is it. _This_ is the point of no return he’s been waiting for, but now Tim is here and he can’t _do anything_ about it. Not even Robin could get out of this without a weapon, and Tim has none. He’s powerless.  
  
The creep releases Tim’s hair with a whisper of, “Don’t move.” Before he can do anything more with his newly freed hand, though, Tim’s body is thrown into action faster than he can comprehend moving at all. The world goes hazy, time itself turning to molasses. Absently Tim feels muscles flex, sees shapes move in front of his eyes, but someone else might as well be controlling Tim’s body while he’s locked in the backseat, missing the entire ride.  
  
One minute Tim is on his back with the creep on top of him, and after a chunk of time that Tim can’t remember participating in, he’s standing against the alley wall with something clutched in his hand. Tim blinks back the fog, but it lingers. He looks down and studies the way his fingers clasp the handle of the knife. That can’t be right. He wasn’t holding a knife before.  
  
Tim comes back to his body in increments, a stop-motion reel. First there’s a stinging ache on the back of his head, blood soaking into the back of his shirt and plastering his hair against his neck. His gaze slips from the glinting knife to the blood that covers his hands, warm and sticky.   
  
Then he catches a shape on the ground in front of him and Tim’s breath catches in his throat. The man from before is on the ground now, his eyes closed and blood spreading from a stab wound directly over his sternum.   
  
Tim drops the knife like it’s white-hot. Oh, god. Oh, _god._  
  
Tim did this. He was...he didn’t mean it. He didn’t. He would never. But the man was on top of him and Tim couldn’t breathe, and...he didn’t _mean it._  
  
Tim staggers back until his back hits the cold brick wall, his pulse pounding in his ears so loud the entire city must hear it. He just stabbed a person. He just _killed_ a person. The one rule he’s supposed to follow, the _one thing_ he promised never to do, and he just did it. Without even a second’s hesitation. He took a _life._  
  
What is Bruce going to say when he finds out?  
  
Tim’s legs are made of jello, wobbling in warning until they give out entirely and he slides to the ground, knees pulled in close to his chest. His hands are still covered in blood. A dead man’s blood. He should...he should do something. He should act. First-aid, stop the bleeding, do whatever it takes to help in case there’s a chance.   
  
Tim doesn’t move. He doesn’t even try. His limbs have been replaced with rubber, his brain with slush. He just killed a man.  
  
In the back of his mind he knows he can’t go home, not like this. Not covered in another man’s blood. Even if he tried, Tim isn’t sure he’d make it two steps without collapsing into a puddle of whatever emotion is making him feel as though he’s rotting from the inside out. His family lives by a code, would sooner die themselves than take a life. _Bats don’t kill._ Tim doesn’t kill.  
  
Tim killed.  
  
His fingers shake as they take out his cell phone on autopilot, and the screen is cracked at the corner from when he was slammed into the ground. That’s going to cost money to fix. Tim gets blood on the screen, smudging over his contact list and warping the names. He finds the one he’s looking for and puts the phone to his ear.  
  
A ring. Two rings. A click. _“This had better be important,”_ Jason says.  
  
Tim swallows. “Um. I—um.” He can’t take his eyes off of the body, lying there still as a corpse. _Because it is a corpse._ “My...head isn’t working. It’s—something is wrong. With me.”  
  
_“Are you high or something? Because if you are, I’ll fucking kill you.”_  
  
That does it. What little resolve Tim held on to cracks in one clean split and a sob bursts through. He covers his mouth with his elbow, choking on gasps. “Jay, I—it was an accident. I swear to god, I didn’t mean to. He was...it wasn’t...I didn’t _mean to.”_  
  
There’s a creak on the other end, maybe Jason sitting up in his chair. Or maybe he just sat down. Maybe he closed a door. Too many things in the world are creaky. _“What the hell are you talking about? What happened?”_  
  
“He’ll kick me out. He’s gonna take Robin away from me.”  
  
Something slams—definitely a door. _“Kid, tell me where you are.”_  
  
“I don’t know. It was—” His brain isn’t working. For the first time in his life, logic and reason escape him and Tim’s mind pushes into overdrive, drags him deeper and deeper into oblivion. Bruce is going to find out. He’s going to find out and he’s going to hate Tim for the rest of his life.   
  
Bruce doesn't like murderers.  
  
_“Goddamn it. Tim, listen to me. Can you do that?”_  
  
It takes a moment, but Tim manages to get out an affirming noise.  
  
_“I’m going to track your phone and come get you. Don’t move, got it? Stay right where you are. I’ll be there soon.”_ Jason hangs up, leaving Tim alone again. He drops his phone back on the concrete, uncaring of potential breaks. It’s already been cracked.  
  
“He’s going to kick me out,” Tim repeats to the empty alleyway.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Tim is cold by the time Jason arrives. Or maybe he’s been cold this entire time. It’s hard to tell.   
  
“Fuck,” Jason swears as he takes in the scene before him. The body on the pavement. Tim, huddled against the alley wall, his eyes glazed over as he stares at the body like a horror movie he can’t turn off. Jason isn’t wearing his helmet, just a domino mask. He takes it off when he kneels in front of Tim, makes Tim meet his eyes. “Hey, kid. You with me?”   
  
“I killed him.” The words taste acrid on Tim’s tongue, sour.   
  
“Don’t worry about that now. Are you hurt anywhere?”    
  
Tim doesn’t answer. The back of his head stung before, but the pain is muffled now. Everything is muffled. “I killed him, Jay. I’m a murderer. Bruce is...I’m not  _ supposed  _ to kill. Robins don’t kill. They don’t.” His chest is tight, getting tighter by the minute until it feels like every breath is being sucked in through a tiny straw.   
  
“Tim, breathe,” Jason tells him. He puts his hand on Tim’s shoulder, and that helps a little. Gives him something to latch onto. “You’re in shock. Try putting your head between your knees.”   
  
Tim does, stares down at the dirty pavement between his sneakers. His eyes linger on an old fast food receipt. It has droplets of blood on it. “I don’t know what happened, I really don’t. He was—it was an accident. He was on top of me and he had a knife and then he was choking me and...I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe, so I just—I just  _ moved. _ And now he’s dead. I killed him. What am I going to do?”   
  
“It was self-defense,” Jason says, as if the answer could really be so simple. “If you hadn’t acted, he would have hurt you. Maybe even killed you. You did the right thing.”   
  
“No, it’s—” Tim picks his head up, digs his nails into his knees to keep himself above the fog.  _ “No.  _ I took a life. I’m guilty. I can’t—there’s no coming back from that. There isn’t.” How can he  _ live _ with himself after this? Does he even deserve to?   
  
“What, so you would rather be  _ dead _ than have to tell Bruce you took a life? Seriously?”   
  
“Yes.” There’s no hesitation, not even a pause to let the words soak in.   
  
Jason sighs, and Tim is too far gone to decipher what it means. He squeezes Tim’s shoulder once and stands, goes over to the body still lying on the ground. (As if a dead man would go anywhere.) Jason crouches down and takes off one of his gloves, presses two fingers over the man’s neck. After a moment or two, he lets out a breath. “He’s still alive.”   
  
Tim’s breath hitches. “Really? Are you sure?”   
  
“Pulse is thready, but he’s not dead.”   
  
All of the air leaves Tim’s lungs in one huge whoosh, making him lightheaded. “Oh my god. That’s…” That’s good, right? It’s a good thing. It should be a good thing.   
  
“Yup. That’s one hell of a relief.” Jason straightens up from his crouch. He reaches into his jacket, pulls out a gun, and fires it into the man’s head.   
  
“Jason!” It happens so fast that Tim doesn’t even have the capacity to think about the blood and brain matter splattered over Jason’s clothes, Tim’s shoes, the cracks in the alley’s pavement. “How  _ could you—” _   
  
“What? It’s not like he was going to walk it off or anything.”   
  
“We just—” Tim’s stomach churns. It feels like he’s going to be sick. “We just  _ killed  _ a man.”   
  
“No, _ I _ killed a man.” Jason holsters his gun, then kicks the body in the side for good measure. “You, however, are off the hook.”   
  
“What are you talking about? I  _ stabbed _ him.” The knife is around here somewhere. That’s evidence. Proof of what happened tonight, what Tim did. What Jason finished.   
  
“And I shot him in the head. One of those is worse than the other.”   
  
“But I—”   
  
“No,” Jason snaps. He lowers himself to look Tim in the eyes. “You didn’t. Kill. Anyone. Got it? I killed him. Your slate is still clean.”   
  
“There’s a body. Evidence. I still did this.”   
  
Jason grabs the bloody knife and tucks it into his jacket. “No, the Red Hood did this. He cornered the guy in an alley, stabbed him, then shot him in the face. That’s what happened.”   
  
Tim shakes his head. “You can’t. You can’t take the fall for me.”   
  
“I’m not. I’m the one who killed him, right? I’m just taking responsibility for my own actions, which nobody is going to look twice at because this is the third one this week.” Jason takes Tim by the arm, pulling him upright and keeping him steady when he wobbles.    
  
“What about Bruce?”   
  
“We’ll tell him the truth. That you got attacked by some creep, I killed his slimy ass like he deserved, and then I let you crash at my place for the night to make sure you were safe. That’s it. Understand?”   
  
Tim isn’t sure if he does or not. He’s too numb to attempt puzzling it out, but he does know one thing he can say. “Thanks, Jason.”   
  
“Don’t mention it. Just try not to puke on me until we get to my place and I’ll call us even.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Edit: For those of you who are asking, yes, Jason was lying when he said the guy was still alive. He didn't want his little brother to have to live with the burden of taking a life. 
> 
> [Feel free to mosey on down to my Tumblr!](http://sohotthateveryonedied.tumblr.com/)


End file.
